Cheers for the All-Stars

PETER BUFFA

Give the girls a hand. Well, a cheer maybe.

Last Sunday, the national “King of the Bleachers” cheer and dance

competition was held at the UCI Bren Center -- as if you didn’t know

that.

Do you know who took first place -- the blue ribbon, le grand

prix, the big one, or if you prefer, all the marbles in their

division? The Newport Dance Cheer All-Stars, that’s who -- eight

local girls, ages 9 to 13, who can jump, jive and wail like nobody’s

business.

The Newport team was not only better than its rivals, but a whole

lot smaller, with only eight jumpers, jivers and wailers: Lindsey

Gaitan, Costa Mesa; Natalie Goodman, Newport Beach; Nirvana Consoli,

Costa Mesa; Ellen O’Brien, Newport Beach; Amanda Harvey, Santa Ana;

Jayde Johnston, Costa Mesa; Paulina Le, Fountain Valley and Brooke

Nash, Newport Beach.

The Newport All-Stars was founded by superstar cheer coach Lisa

Callahan, a former cheerleader and choreographer for the Raiders and

Rams, who has led a number of area squads to the loftiest heights of

the cheer and dance universe.

You might also remember the name from what I still consider the

greatest chapter in Newport-Mesa history -- the Newport Harbor High

Cheerleader Riots of 2001 -- in which Callahan blew the whistle,

rightfully so, on irregularities in that year’s cheerleader tryouts.

By the time the melee between cheerleaders, wannabe cheerleaders,

parents and school officials was over, everyone was involved but the

State Department and the Office of the Attorney General, and they

were keeping an eye on it.

But last Sunday, it was all blue skies and green lights for Lisa

Callahan’s hyperactive and super-talented charges.

Who started this cheerleading thing anyway? Anyone know? Anyone

think I’m not going to tell you? You’re very smart.

Cheerleading is a great American tradition. That much you know.

But you might be surprised to know that’s it’s been around a really

long time -- since 1865, to be exact, which was practically 140 years

ago.

The Civil War was just ending. If you wanted milk, you had to have

a cow. There was no indoor plumbing. Everyone was in a bad mood.

At Princeton University, a group of students got together and

decided they were tired of the war, they didn’t care about cows, and

it was time to do something fun. They started the first “pep club”

and came up with the first, genuine, documented school cheer. It went

like this: “Tah-rah-rah, Tiger Tiger Tiger; sis-sis-sis,

boom-boom-boom, aaahhhh ... Princeton!”

Look, it was 1865, OK? It was the best they could do.

The first organized cheerleading program began some 20 years later

at the University of Minnesota. In 1884, two Minnesota Gophers rugby

players, John W. Adams and Win Sargent, came up with a “team yell.”

They took the Sioux word for victory, “ski” -- which is pronounced

“sky” -- tacked on “U-Mah” for the University of Minnesota and came

up with “Rah rah rah, Ski-U-Mah, hoo-rah, hoo-rah ... Minnesota!”

See? Now you’re sorry you made fun of Princeton.

During a game, a first-year med student named Jack Campbell

realized they were never going to get this thing right without

someone leading the way, so he jumped up and led the crowd through

the “Ski-U-Mah” cheer. Thus, Campbell became the first “cheer leader”

in these United States.

One hundred twenty years later, “Ski-U-Mah” is still the Gophers’

battle cry. Must be the cold, eh? Yah, must be.

Cheerleading squads got bigger and better, but cheerleaders were

predominantly of the male variety until World War II came along. With

most of the able-bodied young men otherwise occupied, the girls took

over the cheerleading chores and never let go.

After the war, cheerleading got serious. Male cheerleaders

reappeared and handled the gymnastics, which got bigger and bolder.

In 1948, a very important year for some of us, Lawrence “Hurkie”

Hurkimer -- and yes, that’s his real name -- organized the first

“cheerleading camp” at Sam Houston University in Huntsville, Texas,

with exactly 52 girls in attendance. Today, cheerleading camps and

competitions number in the thousands across the country and are a

multi-billion dollar business.

In 1965, a man named Fred Gastoff apparently had way too much time

on his hands and came up with something that would change the world

of cheerleading forever -- the vinyl pompon. Ask any historian about

the greatest breakthroughs of the 20th century -- penicillin,

computers, vinyl pompons.

The “Bruin High Step”, originated by the UCLA cheerleading squad,

remains the classic pompon routine to this day.

In the early ‘70s, the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders

started the NFL cheerleader craze and the NBA soon followed. The

Cowboy cheerleaders were the first to perform at a Super Bowl game,

Super Bowl X in 1976. There were no wardrobe malfunctions.

How much do NFL and NBA cheerleaders make? About 50 bucks a game.

The 1993 film starring Holly Hunter as the Texas mom who tried to

have one of her daughter’s cheerleading rivals killed had the longest

title in the history of television films: “The Positively True

Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom.”

What was the real woman’s name? Wanda Holloway.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah, a few famous cheerleaders: Teri

Hatcher, Reba McEntire, Meryl Streep, Cybill Shepherd and Raquel

Welch, but also Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas and

Samuel L. Jackson.

So there you have it -- the history of cheering, dancing, yelling

and rioting, not necessarily in that order. To Jack Campbell, you big

Gopher you, we owe all to you, eh? And to the Newport Dance Cheer

All-Stars -- you are, like, totally cool.

And as you go through life, if you remember nothing else, remember

this -- Ski-U-Mah.

Gimme an “I,” gimme a “g” ... I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].